Saturday, June 21, 2008

This individual illuminated manuscript initial (spliced together from screencaps) exists as a fragment and was probably produced in Italy in about 1500. It is one of three vellum cuttings taken from choirbooks on sale as a set next month.

"very large historiated initial 'E', 200mm. by 178mm., in burnished gold and coloured acanthus-leaf sprays and an ornamental face, enclosing eight popes and bishops, all on black grounds heightened with liquid gold scrolls and surrounded by naturalistic flower-cuttings, a butterfly and a peacock, all within a rectangular burnished gold frame"
*requires registration to view their sales brochures

"The Mahzor was in use in the community of Worms until the synagogue’s destruction on Kristallnacht, November 1938. It was rescued by the city’s archivist, who hid it in the cathedral. In 1957, following legal proceedings in Germany, the manuscript was transferred to the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem."

The tetragrammaton - יהוה (Yod, He, Waw and He) - is the Hellenised Hebrew spelling of the name of God - without vowels - in the Old Testament, rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah or Adonai or Lord.

The old fellow in the image is 'holding' the Tree of Life or Kabbalah of Judaism, the ten-stage (sephiroth) path in the physical and metaphysical planes to God. The symbology has been co-opted, with mystical permutations, in various branches of the esoteric systems such as Hermeticism, Gnosis and the like. ['Portae Lucis' means the doors of light]

These rather eccentric illustrations come from 'Historia Naturae, Maxime Peregrinae, Libris XVI.', 1635 by Spanish philosopher and scholar, Juan Eusebio Nieremberg. The work, which features more than one hundred and fifty illustrations (they are not all as unusual as these examples), was said to be based largely on an earlier book by Francisco Hernandez, who had been sent to study the fauna and flora of New Spain. Hence, some of the Aztec names for species persist in Nieremberg's book. It is regarded as an important early source work for the Americas, and particularly Mexico. {Some few of the illustrations I have seen before from other sources - eg. Gesner mid-1550s}
The detail images above were sourced from Strasbourg Universities Library (click folder icon top left once inside to load thumbnails).

"Johannes Müller von Königsberg, called Regiomontanus, was arguably the most important astronomer of the fifteenth century. [..] It is often said, and justly, that Regiomontanus set the agenda for the reform of astronomy to which Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler all contributed." [Cambridge University; nb. multiple pages]

"Printed calendars and almanacs became extremely popular in the fifteenth century and provided ordinary people with the basic knowledge required to plan their daily routines. The market for calendars was first tapped by Gutenburg, who published a calendar which calculated the times of new and full moons and planetary positions, with readings every two to three days. All earlier calendars, however, were superseded by those of Regiomontanus (1436-1476) whose calculations were far more accurate[.]" [University of Glasgow Library Book of the Month]

From HAB: 'Gymnasium Patientiae' - by Jeremias Drexel, a Jesuit writer of devotional literature and Professor of Rhetoric/Humanities. [1662 Ed.]
"In this work, Drexel compares the sorrowful life to a school, which man has to pass through. Drexel had been treating this matter before as a preacher to the Bavarian electoral court. The German translation by Joachim Meichel was published in 1630 under the title "Creutz-Schul"." [source]
{There is the odd mention of this being an emblem book, although it only has a few engravings, none more striking that this bewildering example.}

From the early 1950s Persian book of bedtime(!) stories: 'What did Flower do to the Weed', kindly submitted by Kristen Alvanson, an artist living in Shiraz, Iran. She has posted more of the book images to her blog, Lumpen Orientalism: one, two, three.

Gottfried Benjamin Hancke was a Silesian baroque lyricist and these images come from his book of poems from 1731 (1750 Ed. shown), 'Nebst denen Neu kirchischen Satyren''Gedichte erster Theil, nebst..'at HAB (something like: Beyond the new Satyr Church). Hancke's books have contributed quite a few ornaments to the set as I recall.

From BSB Cod.icon. 48 a(2 - 'Aquarellzeichnungen von Reptilien II', an anonymous album of watercolour sketches of reptiles from 1805-1808.

The frontispiece from Athanasius Kircher's third and final book on magnetism, 'Magneticum Naturae Regnum', 1667 at HAB, Wolfenbüttel.

One of Athanasius Kircher's earliest books was his treatise written in Avignon on sundials and published in 1635, 'Primitiae gnomonicae catoptricae', available at HAB. The Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte has some commentary in Italian [translation]. {They have some nice large - unrelated - frontispieces too, as part of their exhibition site.}

Codex Vindobonensis 1856, published in Vienna in 1930 - "This is a facsimile of Vienna Codex 1856, a Burgundian Manuscript of c.1470 written and illuminated on black vellum." [nb. 1856 is a number, not a date] D & D Galleries have all the illuminated pages out of this unusual manuscript available. I did some cursory searching the other day but failed to turn up further examples of illumination work on black parchment or vellum. Update: read the comments below.

[Also see UPDATE at end of post below]

The ever excellent Princeton Graphic Arts blog posted some images from an intriguing specimen in their collection: "a scrolling panorama made up of 12 unsigned, hand-colored etchings, with a narrative in verse, attributed to [Thomas] Rowlandson and titled 'Mister O’Squat'.

This intriguing work relates to Augustus the Younger (Duke of Brunswick - Wolfenbüttel) and was produced in the last decade of his life. He is another of the great bibliophiles and cultural patrons of the Renaissance/Early Modern periods. His large collection of books formed the basis of the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel so he is a favoured historical figure with respect to BibliOdyssey. Not so favoured, however, that he will be usurping the mantle of (unofficial) patron of BibliOdyssey from Ottheinrich any time soon. Despite his many good qualities, Augustus is also known to have sent seventy witches and sorcerers to their deaths between 1590 and 1610 in his capacity as Chief Judge of his estate.

The top image is particularly worth seeing in larger format. It seems to be something of a religious homage to Augustus, and packed full of symbolic imagery. The figure in the second image appears to be the spitting image of the Duke.

1. Giqatila -vs- Xicatella2. The entry at the German repository actually says: "Giqatila"3. This blog is a geopolitical revisionist tool hoping to wipe Catalonia out of the history books4. This blog aims towards a general english speaking (obviously) audience and unless specific locational names are fairly relevant, SPAIN may be used for shorthand as a vague geographical location for places that are now within the Spanish borders.5. At least I didn't say Portugal. Be thankful for small mercies. But if I had said Portugal, would you have known it was a mistake?6. When you go into an art gallery and a beautiful painting is hanging in a broken frame, remember also to look at the picture.7. There is no number seven.8. Please prepare a 2500 word illustrated history of the Iberian Peninsula so that I can be sure to cross all the tees and dot all the eyes in the future9. I'm fairly stupid. And lazy.10. It's all about the pictures, man.

Excellent post, Paul. So much good stuff! I've got another pile of monstrous imagery I managed to dig out of the Bodlian library that I'll be posting later this week. Thanks again for sharing that excellent resource!

Manuscripts on black parchment were something of a fad at the court of the dukes of Burgundy. There are supposedly six left (five of which were made in the Netherlands, the remaining one in Spain). Two examples I know of:

- The Black Book of Hours (Pierpoint Morgan M. 493), prepared around 1475 in Bruges and attributed to the school of Willem Vrelant. There is a nice facsimile edition available from Faksimile Verlag Luzern (the same firm which did the Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospel facsimiles), which amounts to the only information online that I could find. (link)

- Les Basses danses de Marguerite d'Autriche (Bibliothèque Royale Albert Iier, Brüssel, Ms. 9085), also from around 1470, prepared in Flanders. It contains scores and steps for popular dances. A facsimile is available from Adeva.

I then arrived on this Blog: http://www.brunolussato.com/plugin/tag/calligraphieThe article about the "elephant skin paper" tells about another manuscript (black book from Charles le Téméraire), but I found nothing else about it... should be in Vienna (where?).

Finally, I found another website:http://mitglied.lycos.de/oriane/black/blackaoa.htm

Thanks for the links, karinet - I did not know about the black manuscript in the Vatican library.

The varying figure as to the number of extant manuscripts come from the fact that some only count the number of manuscripts still bound as a codex (3), and some count fragments (6 or 7, depending if you restrict yourself to text or count the scores in the "basse danses" as well).

There were quite a few bible manuscripts on purple parchment in the sixth century - the Codex Brixianus, the Sinope Gospels, the Codex Purpureus Rosseanensis spring to mind.

As regards blue parchment: The nicest one I have seen was a sutra from the Chusonji-kyo, written with silver and gold ink on a dark blue paper scroll. (It was in the Tokyo National Museum, and I seem to remember seeing a good picture on their website later, but Gojira seems to have eaten their webserver ... Which is a pity, because it's a veritable goldmine!) But the Kyoto National Museum has some scrolls from it as well: the Daijo Hibundari-kyo Sutra.

Just a minor correction: Hancke's book is actually called "Gedichte erster Theil, nebst [etc.]", as can be seen here. It obviously was (or was meant to be) part of a collection of his works, thus the title should be translated as simply "First volume of Poems, including the Satires of the New Church".

You are certainly not stupid. Never said that. If I were too brusque, please my excuses... I love your "stuff"... Now, as you are using, though, "asspain" as a geographical term or entity, Portugal is Spain! Spain, Iberia, Hispania... Where the languages and the peoples are, at least, very distincty, five. Toot-toot, live and learn.

Elzi, I don't understand many aspects of European history and geography and what might be obvious to one person is *often* something that I struggle to work out. I just try to be 'fair' and use language that *I* think is appropriate.

The Iberian peninsula is one of those places that I don't know very well - so it's often easier to say 'Spain' than to go into details -----> I try to concentrate on the research for the most immediately important things, so when local names are important, I will try for accuracy. So I'm sorry if I was also abrupt, I meant no offense.

For anyone still following, I just noticed that Salzburg University have some scans of the (facsimile version of) Pierpont Morgan black Book of Hours online. It was the book of the month in November and is timely: the Faksimile Verlag Luzern page appears to be dead or down (as is Adeva). *sigh* Preserving the originals is easy. Maintaining the digital once again proves to be the more difficult challenge.